Crime

Detective Inspector Ray Lennox has fled to Miami to escape the aftermath of a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a harrowing child-sex murder case back in Edinburgh. But his fiancée Trudi is only interested in planning their wedding, and soon Lennox cast adrift, alone in Florida. A coke-fuelled binge brings him into contact with another victim of sexual predation, ten-year-old Tianna, and Lennox flees across the state with his terrified charge, determined to protect her at any cost. But can Lennox trust his own instincts? And can he handle Tianna, while still trying to get to grips with the Edinburgh murder?

Extract

Trudi’s elbow digs his ribs. Her voice now a low whisper. The faintest of downy hair on the top of her glossy pink lips. -It’s just that it shocked me at first. It was trying to reconcile the fact that you’re a normal, red-blooded, heterosexual male with you wanting to be…penetrated in that way...

Lennox fortifies himself with another swig of the Bloody Mary. It’s all but gone. -I never want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with, he says, pulling his features into a shallow smile.

-You’re a honey, she kisses him on the side of the face, the kiss of an aunt, he thinks. She holds open Perfect Bride, at a page displaying, in several script styles, the same announcement of a fictitious wedding. -What do you reckon about these for the invitations? Her big nail thuds at a blue script in Charles Rennie Mackintosh eclat.

Glancing at them, Lennox thinks with mild parochial resentment, of Glasgow. -Too Weedgie, he then points at the gothic illustrations, -I like this one better.

-Oh my God, no way! She gasps and laughs, -You are totally bonkers, Raymond Lennox! These are like funeral invitations! I’m not the Bride of Frankenstein, she raises her eyes and fills her wine beaker. -Just as well you’ve got me organising this wedding. I dread to think what kind of a joke it would be if it was left up to you, she turns to the old girl who’s cheery, intrusive smile is beginning to nauseate Lennox. –Men. Honestly! Good for nothing!

“Crime is by some distance Welsh's most restrained and thoughtful work”

- The Times

“You never know what you're going to get with Irvine Welsh, other than guaranteed intelligence. But what you get here is a triumph. A brave take on paedophile rings and the minds, fast and slow, behind them... There are echoes of rebus, of Christopher Brookmyre, even of Carl Hiaasen... There's only one Welsh and you should be reading him again”

- Observer

“A disturbing but vital read”

- Harper's Bazaar

“An anti-Lolita; a cleverly updated view of those who protect children and those who prey on them. It also works as a slick, fast-paced thriller with a surprisingly coherent and engaging hero”

- Big Issue

“There's a stark immediacy to his prose...frenetically paced thriller”

- Daily Mail

“Running jokes and consciously ludicrous moments come thick and fast”

- Guardian

“The taut dialogue buzzes with snappy ventriloquism. Welsh is one of our most interesting writers on the minutiae of human consciousness”

- Sunday Telegraph

“Essentially a stunning exploration of the darkest parts of the human psyche, one which will haunt the reader”